‘Penny Lane Is Dead’: Aussie Horror Gem Is Disturbingly Fun

Warning: This review contains discussion of sexual assault. 

A film capable of blending genuine bleakness with a sense of wicked fun, Penny Lane Is Dead is a gem in the recent wave of Australian horror films hitting the silver screen. Set against the backdrop of the final moments of summer, Mia’Kate Russell’s feature debut combines the hope of queer love and the despair of an effectively overexaggerated kind of Australian misogyny – with a dash of Ozploitation for good measure – for an effective cinematic experience.

It’s 1986 in a small coastal town, and golden child Penny Lane (Bailey Spalding) will soon be off to university in the big city. She’s celebrating with friends Amy (Alexandra Jensen) and Toni (Tahlee Fereday), the latter of whom Penny is romantically involved with in secret. However, their party is crashed by Penny’s city-dwelling cousin Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn), a walking hurricane with ill intent.

After drugging Penny and getting kicked out by Toni, Kat returns with three shady men, most notably Angus (Ben O’Toole). Clearly gangsters of some kind, Toni and Amy realise they’re in way over their head – and as you might guess by the film’s title, things only get worse from there. As such, Toni is the default lead of Penny Lane Is Dead, becoming our perspective character as she attempts to save Penny and get out of the horrible situation she’s found herself in.

It’s not the most obvious pick for a “great performance” in the film, but I wanted to shout out Tahlee Fereday first because I thought she was genuinely excellent at balancing the fear and badassery necessary to be the lead of a horror/thriller film, playing really well off an excellent Alexandra Jensen.

Penny Lane Is Dead feels like it could already be underrated

Meanwhile, Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn and Ben O’Toole are the more obviously impressive performances, each inhabiting certain kinds of miscreant Australian archetypes with alarming accuracy. O’Toole makes Angus a particularly hateable bastard, and Wright-Mendelsohn has fine-tuned control over having sympathy and antipathy for a character that does some really horrible things.

Most of that happens to Penny, portrayed with great capability by Bailey Spalding. Her radiance is anathema to Kat’s personal brand of edge, with jealousy undeniably playing a part in her hatred of Penny. In her time in the city with her ‘boyfriend’ Angus, she seems to fully internalise her misogyny and trade in the lives of her family to appease these evil men.

It culminates in a viscerally implicative sexual assault scene, followed by the subsequent death of Penny. The violence on display here feels uncomfortably real compared to many other horror films, considering how accurately it puts Australian misogyny into the limelight while doing it.

Yes, the Anguses of the world exist, but they are enabled by the men around them – particularly fascinating to me here was Merrick, an older man who hates Angus’ particular brand of cruelty, but does nothing to stop it. Steve Le Marquand makes the fascinating choice to play him as a stereotypical “bloke”, although his actions are completely at odds with that decency suggested by that archetype.

Their despicable actions makes it all the more satisfying to see them get their comeuppance later in Penny Lane Is Dead. Mia’Kate Russell’s previous experience as a make-up artist shines through across the film, with some particularly gnarly gore and very fun horror filmmaking carrying the film to its conclusion, even if the pacing is a little bit spotty in the second half.

The mix of genuinely upsetting material and extremely capable genre filmmaking makes Penny Lane Is Dead a surprising, fun 90-minute horror/thriller exercise. The great directing, excellent cast and pernicious commentary give it all the makings of a local cult classic – don’t miss out on seeing this one in cinemas!

★★★★

Penny Lane Is Dead is in cinemas now.